editing

A quick progress report on the next Jason Cosmo title, Noble Cause. I am still banging away at the manuscript. Ace artist Richard Hescox is sketching ideas for the cover that I hope to see soon. I expect he’ll finish painting the cover by end of June. Shortly thereafter, I’ll debut the cover here at the Jason Cosmo Update. In the meantime, the text will go through editing. I haven’t set a release date yet. August would be the very soonest, but it may be later, depending how the pieces come together.

I also have on my to-do list recording a “bookcast” audio version of Hero Wanted. I hope to get in the studio soon for that!

A quick update on the status of HERO WANTED. I have finished reviewing and correcting the page proofs and sent those back to the typesetter. She will make the changes in the next few days and return it to me for final approval. At that point the text will be ready for the printer.

Meanwhile, I am also waiting for the final cover proof. The front cover looks great, as you’ve all seen. But there will be, of course, a back cover to go with it. Once that is done the book will be ready to print, inside and out.

In the meantime, I am updating the final manuscript version with the same list of corrections I made to the proofs in preparation for uploading the text to Smashwords, which is where the ebook will be available. If you are interested in reading HERO WANTED as an ebook, I suggest you go ahead and open a Smashwords account (it doesn’t cost anything to do so) and you’ll be ready to go when the book is available there.

Relative silence in this space the last few weeks, I know. But fear not! Amid the distractions travel and gainful employment, I have been plugging away at getting HERO WANTED ready for release. Over the last week or so I’ve been reviewing the galleys (page proofs) for the book — that is to say, I am for the first time reading the book as it will appear on the printed page, as opposed to reading my manuscript. It looks good! And this is pretty much the next to last step before we’re ready to print. So although I’m cutting it close (in the best Jason Cosmo tradition) the book is on track.

Today I continue my line-by-line edit of Hero Wanted. It is a cold, rainy day — great for editing! I just finished marking up chapter 10. But I realize a blow-by-blow account of the editing process is not an attention grabber. So let’s talk color!

Specifically, that color somewhere between black and white that rhymes with hay. You know how some people see the world in black and white and others see all the shades of this particular color in between? That’s the one I mean.

My line edit of the Hero Wanted manuscript is grinding slowly forward. As I noted on Twitter earlier today, I am now about a fourth of the way through the approximately 400 page manuscript, carefully scrutinizing and editing every line.

I thought this was going to be an exercise in checking for typos and looking up obscure points of grammar. After all, I have written this book twice! Surely it is already as good as it will ever be. But as Editor Dan I am finding that the work of Author Dan on this twice told tale can indeed be polished, revised and improved–yes, I believe I am making Hero Wanted a better book than Jason Cosmo ever was.

Despite my recent silence in this space, I have not been idle. Work is proceeding on the forthcoming Trove Books edition of Jason Cosmo #1: Hero Wanted. You have already seen the new Jason Cosmo series logo.

I am also awaiting preliminary sketches from the cover artist, for what I am sure is going to be an amazing cover. Continue reading →

A Note to Loyal Readers of the Future: From my blog stats I can tell that few people are reading the Jason Cosmo Update here in October of 2008. So chances are that if you’re reading this at all, you’re doing so in the distant future, perhaps in a time in which the Jason Cosmo books have become the basis for a new Golden Age of universal peace, prosperity, and astonishing artistic, scientific and technological wonders. I don’t know, because I haven’t written that particular book yet here in the present. What I do know if that this post provides answers to questions posed in the previous post Jason Cosmo Cover Story, Part 2. So you should read that one first. — Dan McGirt

Greetings, Loyal Reader!

Pencils down!

Last time I invited you to find the errors in the back cover copy on the original edition of Jason Cosmo, of which there are at least seven. (Special thanks to the precisely one of you who shared your answers with the rest of us.) This time, as promised, I will reveal my answers. Some errors are straightforward and some are a question of interpretation, as you’ll see. Continue reading →

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